Assimilate

A Critical History of Industrial Music

S. Alexander Reed

Draws on interviews with both famous and forgotten musicians, record label owners, DJs, and promoters

Offers close readings of twenty exemplary works spanning thirty years

Assimilate

A Critical History of Industrial Music

S. Alexander Reed

Description

"Industrial" is a descriptor that fans and critics have applied to a remarkable variety of music: the oildrum pounding of Einstürzende Neubauten, the processed electronic groans of Throbbing Gristle, the drumloop clatter of Skinny Puppy, and the synthpop songcraft of VNV Nation, to name just a few. But the stylistic breadth and subcultural longevity of industrial music suggests that the common ground here might not be any one particular sound, but instead a network of ideologies. This book traces industrial music's attitudes and practices from their earliest articulations--a hundred years ago--through the genre's mid-1970s formation and its development up to the present and beyond.

Taking cues from radical intellectuals like Antonin Artaud, William S.
Burroughs, and Guy Debord, industrial musicians sought to dismantle deep cultural assumptions so thoroughly normalized by media, government, and religion as to seem invisible. More extreme than punk, industrial music revolted against the very ideas of order and reason: it sought to strip away the brainwashing that was identity itself. It aspired to provoke, bewilder, and roar with independence. Of course, whether this revolution succeeded is another question...

Assimilate is the first serious study published on industrial music. Through incisive discussions of musicians, audiences, marketers, cities, and songs, this book traces industrial values, methods, and goals across forty years of technological, political, and artistic change. A scholarly musicologist and a longtime
industrial musician, S. Alexander Reed provides deep insight not only into the genre's history but also into its ambiguous relationship with symbols of totalitarianism and evil. Voicing frank criticism and affection alike, this book reveals the challenging and sometimes inspiring ways that industrial music both responds to and shapes the world.

Assimilate is essential reading for anyone who has ever imagined limitless freedom, danced alone in the dark, or longed for more noise.

Assimilate

A Critical History of Industrial Music

S. Alexander Reed

Table of Contents

Introduction 1. A Fading Vision Lost in Time2. The Pan-Revolutionary3. The "I"-WordPart 1: Technology and the Preconditions of Industrial MusicI. Italian Futurism 1. Industry2. The Aesthetics of the Machine3. CrashII. William S. Burroughs 1. Junkie2. The Control Machines3. Brainwashing and the Conflation of Authority4. Mediatic Verses5. The Cut-Up6. Process as Composition7. Media8. Techno-AmbivalenceIII. Industrial Music and the Avant-Garde 1. Noise and Revisionism2. The Revolutionary ClassPart 2: Industrial GeographyIV. Northern England 1. Progress in Hell2. The Original Sound of Sheffield3. Meatwhistle and ClockDVA4. Throbbing Gristle5.
Manchester in the Shadow of WarV. Berlin 1. An Island Out of This Planet2. Strategies Against Architecture3. German-ness4. Ingenious Dilettantes5. West Germany Beyond BerlinVI. San Francisco 1. Madness in Any Direction, at Any Hour2. Monte Cazazza and Self-Propaganda3. Z>'ev and Survival Research Laboratories4. Factrix and ChromeVII. Mail Art, Tape Technology, and the Network 1. Fluxus and UFOs2. A History of Tape Trading3. Taping as a Political Act4. The Eternal Network5. A Virtual ScenePart 3: Industrial Music as MusicVIII. The Tyranny of the Beat: Dance Music and Identity Crisis 1. Those Heady Days of Idealism Are Over2. Irony3. Technology and Rhythm4. Futurist Pop5.
Pleasure6. Industrial IdentityIX. 1. The Mission is Terminated2. London3. Beyond LondonX. Body to Body: Belgian EBM 1981-1985 1. A Satellite State2. Luc Van Acker3. Front 4. Musical Order5. Bodily OrderXI. Industrial Music as a Theatre of Cruelty 1. Artaud-Damaged2. Theatricalities of All KindsXII. "She's a Sleeping Beast": Skinny Puppy and the Feminine Gothic 1. From Pop to Puppy2. Vancouver's Fertile Ground3. Disrupting Maleness4. The Feminine GothicPart 4: People and Industrial MusicXIII. Wild Planet: WaxTrax! Records and Global Dance Scenes 1. Industrial Music and the Mainstream2. The Beginnings of WaxTrax!3. Ministry4.
Mixing and Merging5. The Business of Chaos6. Clubbing and Participatory Culture7. New Beat8. The WaxTrax! HeydayXIV. Q: Why Do We Act Like Machines? A: We Do Not. 1. Pretty Hate Machine2. Industrial Harmony3. Language, the Self, and Gender4. Get Me an Industrial Band5. Resembling the MachineXV. Death 1. Death as Event2. Death as Metaphor3. Death as Fashion4. New LifeXVI. Wonder 1. Covenant and the Ubiquitous Sublime2. Apoptygma Berzerk and the Spontaneous Sublime3. VNV Nation and the Unthinkable Sublime4. The Futurepop Backlash5. Clubbed to Death6. The Longevity of Industrial Bands7. Industrial Music Is Dead?Part 5: Meaning and RevolutionXVII. Back and Forth:
Industrial Music and Fascism 1. Extremism as the Norm2. Silent Politics3. Loud Apolitics4. The Effects of Fascism's Spectre5. Fascist Assimilation6. The Hidden ReverseXVIII. White Souls in Black Suits: Industrial Music and Race 1. Whiteness2. The Inheritance of Blues, Jazz, and Dub3. Exotica, Caricature, and the Techno-Oblivious4. Technology and Racial Engagement5. Black and White6. Repetition and the English BalladXIX. Is There Any Escape for Noise? 1. Unpalatable Truths2. The First Two Options3. Transgression as Law4. The Future Happened Already5. Pleasure, Flag Planting, and Revolution6. The Third Mind

Assimilate

A Critical History of Industrial Music

S. Alexander Reed

Author Information

S. Alexander Reed is Assistant Professor of Music Theory at the University of Florida. He has published and presented research on vocal timbre, embodiment, postpunk music, and the recordings of Nine Inch Nails, Laurie Anderson, Rammstein, and Tori Amos. Reed has released five albums with his own gothic-industrial band, ThouShaltNot.

Assimilate

A Critical History of Industrial Music

S. Alexander Reed

From Our Blog

Curated from the pages of Assimilate: A Critical History of Industrial Music, this playlist spans over 30 years, offering a chronological tour of industrial music. From its politically charged beginnings in noisy performance art and process-based tape meddling, it moved into 1980s flirtations with rock to its more recent aggressive, synth-driven goth-tinged dance stylings.

Audi now employs two generations of Spocks as spokesmen and Axe
body spray hawks a space voyage sweepstakes to hormonal jocks with the promise that chicks dig astronauts. Tired of ninjas, pirates, robots, and zombies, edgy advertisers appear to have set their fad-hungry gaze on space as the current (if not final) frontier of Awesome'the somewhat-undefinable quality that high-fives our inner ten year-old.